After all
by Electro Club
Summary: His eternity, he came to understand, was as incongruous and contradictory as he was; he’d forever be the here and now, he’d forever only have the here and now. Jack/Ianto. Post-Exit Wounds.


**Title:** After all  
**Fandom:** Torchwood.  
**Pairing:** Jack/Ianto.  
**Warnings, etc.:** Post-Exit Wounds.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Word count:** 4318.  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters or series belong to me. I wish.  
**Beta work by:** **purestoneworker**. I'm not a native English speaker, and for my vocabulary and possible slips I apologize.

-~-

He snapped his head up from the pillow with the startling sensation of being under attack. That kind of unexpected morning rattling wasn't unfamiliar to him, though he couldn't really remember the last time it had happened, and was generally glad about it. Halfway between sleeping and waking, Jack felt something – something _furious_ – kicking ferociously against his physical integrity. Sustaining some faint hope of drifting back to sleep, he waited patiently and unmoving for the rampant assault to stop. Sometimes it did.

Not this time though.

With a hoarse, surly growl, Jack finally opened his eyes to find, unsurprisingly, Ianto rebelling against the world next to him, with an edge of fierce determination on the way his eyebrows knit together as he put all his effort into exterminating all the great evils Jack's legs apparently sealed.

Jack could half agree with that. And it would be hilarious, if only it wasn't _his_ limbs being wrestled upon.

"Ianto," he murmured, nudging the unsettled man next to him. The response came through a loud mumble that probably meant something honorable and deep, but sounded like no more than a bark.

Jack rolled his eyes, then himself, to lie on his back. Ianto thought it was a good opportunity to sharpen his moves and kick harder. By instinct and protection, Jack kicked back, which made a sleeping Ianto grumble indignantly at the petulance of his action, making clear it had not been one of Jack's wisest decisions.

"Ianto," he said again, with the authoritarian tone bestowed to him as the dashing leader of a secret organization, outside the government, far beyond the cretins at the police, and he reckoned that should mean he was way too far up the ranks to get gratuitously thrashed for no accountable reason. And it wasn't like Jack was really that demanding, he did keep quite a generous list of reasons for a good spanking, after all. Getting kicked out of his sleep at early hours of the morning when he hadn't been resting properly for over a month, however, was most definitely not an acceptable item on his list.

Finally he resorted to poking Ianto in the ribs, persistently. Much more effective, if not slightly undermining to his authority.

Ianto's eyes flew startlingly open. "Wha?" he gasped, between bemuse and fright, eyes electric and wide. "Wha?!"

"Can't you work out your anger peacefully?" Jack asked, with righteous – and lazy - indignation.

Ianto blinked and focused on Jack's face, lips parted as he stared dully into his lover's eyes. What he said next, Jack thought, could've been something in Welsh. But then again, it was probably not. It was, however, chanted with a lot of dignity and passion, almost convincing Jack of the existence of relevance in that unintelligible grumble.

Ianto arched a rather presumptuous eyebrow at Jack and, as though seeing nothing particularly interesting, went back to sleep, cradling his head with his arms and turning his face to the other side, completely oblivious to the effects of his rabid offensive.

Jack stared at the ceiling for long ten seconds before concluding he wouldn't have the same luck as Ianto. The clock said it was six am, a little voice in the back of his mind was cursing rather angrily in several different languages, some Jack wasn't even sure he recognized. His body said, with a marked twinge of pain, that he'd have several bruises on his legs for a while. He remembered a time when marks on his skin wouldn't necessarily have unpleasant meanings.

Jack turned his head to the side and watched, with equal parts anger and admiration, the low, rhythmical pace with which his aggressor's back went up and down, strong and steady. His peacefulness made envy well up inside of Jack, practically mocking him with disdainful disregard for his ruined morning.

He let loose a satisfied sigh in spite of himself. Sometimes, just sometimes, he could let Ianto get away with it. Probably not for too long, but for now. He reckoned that was likely to be what sharing a bed was about anyway, making concessions and coping with differences. One day he steals the blanket, the next day he gets spanked, it was the natural order of things. If he stopped to think about it, it was even a lame metaphor for what his life had always been like. It felt good, for once, to have it literally.

And, well, the kicking couldn't be worse than the time Ianto woke him up with an unwarranted bucket of cold water. Never would be too soon before it happened again. He had picked quite a rebellious man for partner in bed; Ianto seemed to use his nights as a release for all his bottled anger – which made Jack question himself, often, if he wasn't somehow responsible for the enraged outbursts. He wondered how long until he got shot.

Exhaling in defeat, Jack got up and scanned the room for something to put on. He only needed his trousers, the rest looked too beautiful and meaningful, scattered about. Opportunities to remain undressed were thoroughly appreciated, not to mention scarce. There was something extremely relaxing and comforting about not having to tug clothing swiftly into place and part with a quick kiss. Not that Jack had anything against casual sex or felt anywhere near embarrassed with informalities. But there was no denying it was good – no, actually, it was _great_, to vary and engage in something different, to find a comforting point wherein he could lay back and relax, breathe calmly and take his time to fully appreciate a moment of rare intimacy. Walking around half naked – or completely naked, if he felt as so – was part of that.

By then, Jack had already learned all the smells and the shades of that flat. It smelled mostly like a part of life he had long forgotten. Once Ianto woke up, it would smell like coffee - strangely domestic coffee. At night, it'd usually smell like sex and sweat, and sometimes (most times, actually) like Ianto's angel hair pasta cooked in garlic and olive-oil, an easy and quick way to restore energy, and quite surprisingly pretty much everything Ianto knew how to cook.

Ianto's flat was familiar to him for a long time now; he had become an elated frequenter too soon. It wasn't, however, until he was back from the madness and the slaughter of that year that never happened that Jack really started to feel at ease when in there. Anywhere was good for sex, he could attest, but not everywhere felt inviting to the afterwards. He came to realize, after severe frustration, that when you were misplaced, mistimed and on an eternal wait for something, nowhere was ever really inviting.

Jack was always a stranger, always unwelcome, wherever he went. Even at the Hub.

The Hub twisted to his presence as he twisted to its metallic walls and constant sounds. He had an understanding with that place, probably why it started to feel more like home than anywhere else he had ever been in all years on Earth after sometime. He resisted, a lot; the Hub fought back. Eventually they accepted each other, neither pretending anything they were not. The Hub had too many stories to tell, too many secrets to keep; it was a fortress, as Jack was a soldier, and it had seen wars and death on far too many occasions – much like Jack.

Torchwood leaders and Torchwood teams perished throughout the years, and the only things that lasted to tell their stories were Jack and the metallic, kinda scary headquarter. Its rawness eventually became somewhat cozy and sheltering, and he started to recognize himself in there. The Hub stood imposing and majestic under the ground, claiming for respect, as if with a life of its own. Jack learnt to respect it, but never like a home, though; more so as a friend.

The hardest part of defining somewhere, anywhere, as a home, was that Jack couldn't really remember what it was supposed to feel like. His closest and most recent parameters of home were difficult to fit into anything else, hardly usable for comparison purposes, especially in the 21st century.

Home was a blue box, bigger on the inside, and never knowing where you'd go next.

He guessed, however, it had something to do with the smell of homemade coffee or the tempting desire of walking around undressed – which could be translated into a tempting desire of being constantly _there, _of not wanting to leave_, _if he were to be honest with himself.

It, the flat, still owned an unknown atmosphere, but he could tell it also did not pretend to be anything it wasn't.

It did not pretend to be his, for once.

He opened the kitchen cabinets looking for something to eat. His stomach, humming loudly, was almost as ill-mannered as he was.

One interesting thing about Ianto, amongst many that one could find out by digging around his flat while he slept, was that despite his fastidious efficiency to fill Torchwood's storages with food supplies, for either emergencies or unexpected desires of consuming anything other than Indian, Chinese or pizza, his home, in Jack's opinion, offered very few culinary options.

Ianto's favorite cereal, for example, was dreadful and basically all you could find inside that cabinet. He grimaced with dismay at the stack of rich with fibers crap boxes. Supermarkets were so amusing, so huge, so incredibly full of delicious, creative things; why would anyone (with Ianto's wicked and amazing mind) choose _this_, was far beyond his comprehension.

One interesting thing Jack came to discover about himself in the last couple of months, was that the idea of cereals for breakfast actually was one of great appeal to him. Cereals fitted into his new favorite type of food category; easy, tasty and with the recently discovered benefits of low calorie count. Age wasn't making it any easier for him to maintain his sculptural shape. He couldn't die, but could swiftly have some extra pounds added to his weight, which was just cruel in his opinion.

He couldn't cope with Ianto's cereal though.

Instead, Jack went for an apple. Apples were everywhere around Ianto's fridge, because Ianto liked them _cold_. Jack liked them _at room temperature_, as he had explained to Ianto once or twice (or more), hinting him to leave some out of the fridge. Ianto never listened.

His flat, his (awful) food, his rules. Fair enough.

Jack washed his apple and held it between his hands for a moment to warm it up. A generous bite was taken as he walked back to the living room and made himself comfortable on the couch; his stomach hummed a purr of appreciation.

The sound of the rain pouring outside was his only company, and Jack found it rather comforting. He remembered years – now he was just being nice to himself; he remembered _millenniums _back_, _when he used to have a place of his own – or many places, here and there, never really lingering on any. Those were times when he'd wake up with the laziness-inspiring sound of Cardiff's bad weather, only to go back to sleep right after. His life seemed more ordinary back then; he had more time for the little things, for the small details, for the common people and their common stories of everyday life. He missed those times, as he missed those people. He hadn't realized how fascinated and in need of their normalcy he was until it was too late.

He couldn't hear the rain from the Hub.

In the Hub, he'd run ultra modern and half alien meteorological scan systems and then he'd _know_ if it was raining outside. That underground base sealed an alternate reality inside, almost as though you were stepping into another planet. Maybe you were. Almost. It was fitting. Normal people got to wake up with the sound of the rain, cuddle under their blankets and go back to sleep; Torchwood people, aside from barely sleeping at all, woke up with the snarl of the pterodactyl or the constant whirring of the Rift manipulator. It wasn't that Jack would trade his life for one of those normal people's he'd once met, he wouldn't even know what to do; it was just that, sometimes, he wished the price paid for being part of a fantastic way of life, in a time that just wasn't ready for it, wasn't so high.

Wrapped around the solitude and the calmness of the living room at six in the morning, Jack wondered when was it that he had really started to feel that comfortable inside a home that wasn't his. He had lost the moment when certain things stopped requiring consent. At some point Ianto stopped asking if he wanted to come up, and he stopped questioning if Ianto wished he'd come with him. At some point, he just started to feel like he had a life with him – with them, with Ianto and Gwen (and Tosh and Owen before). But Ianto was the closest one, the easiest one.

Easiest did not mean he was easy; exactly the opposite. Ianto was complicated and mostly unreadable. He could be tough and courageous as well as slightly desperate and mildly exasperated at all times. He loved what he did, but he also hated it. He knew when to come and when to go and knew just exactly what to do (even if it meant doing nothing) on a way that sometimes scared Jack.

Ianto didn't want Jack to be anything that he wasn't or that he couldn't be, and for that reason Jack always found it easier to just be himself with Ianto.

Gwen… Gwen was different. Gwen was complicated. Gwen was compelling and wearisome. She demanded someone out of him, ordered him to be the person she expected him to be. She never gave him much of a choice; with her, he was always Captain Jack Harkness, dashing hero of the hour, tough as a rock, knowledgeable about everything, possessor of all the solutions. It hurt him to see the disappointment on her big eyes whenever he failed to meet her expectations, whenever he was forced to get down the pedestal.

With Ianto, he never had to think too much or try too hard to impress, mainly because Ianto didn't want to be impressed (not that Jack would ever stop trying). Ianto hated him once, had wished a very painful and agonizing death upon Jack and, more importantly, had truly meant it - and that had undone them, had undressed them both of all their fake pretences and masks. There was no reason in trying to be a pillar of perfection at all times to a person who could map all your flaws, who had seen behind all your defense walls.

By making everything harder, edging dangerously fatal levels, Ianto had made everything easier in the end.

When he couldn't be a hero, when he had to be a monster, when he didn't have the answer, when he had to break because he was just fucking human – Ianto understood him. Ianto accepted him for the flawed, fucked up, complicated bastard that he was, not the knight in the shiny armor he tried to be.

He loved them both, Gwen and Ianto. Loved them too much for their own sake. And it had never really been a matter of knowing who he loved more, or who he wanted more; Gwen had a made-up Jack he tried to (and wished he could) be, Ianto had always been the one to have the real man.

Both Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper had brought a little bit of that forlorn normality back into his life, each on their own particular way. Gwen provided him with the stories and the common sense of ordinary people. She had the husband, the plans, the big family, a bitch of a mother-in-law, the extra-conjugal affairs, commitments with reality. She was his connection with the outside world, with the sound of the rain. Ianto, unintentionally and almost by accident, was his own slightly twisted and unexpectedly fitting piece of normal life.

They're relationship hadn't unfolded exactly as recommended, they were both damaged and broken and so far from ordinary; but Ianto, asleep in the room by the end of the hall, was a somnambulist, had a bad taste for cereals and liked to watch the morning news as he ate. He hated when Jack did his crossword puzzles and the blue robe he always left in the bathroom was his, and only his, and death by decaf was the destiny of anyone who dared to wear it. Blue that was actually Ianto's favorite color, despite him looking ravishing in red. They had more than once fallen asleep on the couch watching Ianto's complete collection of 007's movies, debated frequently over who was the best Bond (Jack was always on Brosnan's side; Ianto'd call him a predictable slut and righteously argue there had never been a better Bond than Connery). _'Jones, Ianto Jones'_ wasn't a mere coincidence, but a habit since _License to Kill_.

Ianto could take on cannibals, serial killers, aliens, cybernetic girlfriends, cocky governments representatives and ghosts, but a dog would always make him terrified. When he was four, the family's cocker spaniel nearly bit a piece out of his leg. The dog (Pete, was his name), turned out, was sick and had to be put down. Ianto, on the other hand, was forever traumatized and with a now almost imperceptible scar that Jack had felt with the touch of his fingers or the tip of his tongue more than seen, a little above his left knee. Ianto'd rather have to feed a dinosaur than a dog.

Jack never meant to know so much about his archivist. But he did. And it felt strangely compelling and mostly right, but above all, it felt _good_.

Ianto was brilliant and just a little bit crazy, so you could always expect something unpredictable or surprisingly splendid to come out of his perfect symmetry and punctuality. His impeccable appearance, sweet smile and faultless manners were often misread, and Ianto, generally underestimated - which could have very profitable outcomes, or very pernicious. Jack had seen both sides of it, and learnt (through the bad way rather than the good) that what Ianto really had was a huge sense of preciseness, one that sealed many things within.

In a sense, Ianto was like the Hub, like his flat, like Jack himself. Ianto was like home. Had become. Or as much of a home as Jack could ever find at that point of his life.

Jack wasn't trying to extract reason out of his actions or change in habits. He never did. He trusted his sense of practicality and experience enough not to think things over too much unless it was absolutely necessary. Thinking too much meant he'd always discover he was one step closer to the breaking point, always so dangerously edging to madness. Reasoning his personal life, his choices, his loves and his doomed destiny worked like a poison; he could have it in small doses, but doing it too much would cause him to irrevocably crack under the strain.

He tried to keep it in mind that people depended on him and that Torchwood could permit itself the luxury of losing him again, which was only half a lie. It was really him who depended on people to give a meaning to his life. His eternity, he came to understand, was as incongruous and contradictory as he was; he'd forever be the here and now, he'd forever only have the here and now.

It was probably why he felt like letting go of limitations and obstacles he'd once imposed himself – and others – after he lost three people he loved, and spent two thousand years eating Cardiff's dirt. He wasn't reasoning anymore, he was accepting that everything around him was fragile and ephemeral. He didn't want to have to wonder, he didn't want the 'what if'; he wanted to take and protect and fully appreciate everything that was rightfully his, and not miss one moment.

Ianto was the here and now, and only certain to last to the moment he left his flat for work that morning.

_And Jack didn't want to have to wonder._

It frequently ached, it constantly poked at him and he'd never feel completely comfortable in those shoes. But it _was_, simply, in the madness and the confusion that Jack found himself constantly immersed in. It, that never needed a name, was a fact, a certainty, a mutual feeling, something Jack could hold on to, even if just for now. He knew he'd lose, Ianto knew he'd die, and that never meant they couldn't try to escape the inevitable heartbreak and trick _fate_ (how he hated that word) for as long as they could, together. It was plain and simple as that.

Somehow, at some moment, Jack found in that honest and seemingly grievous premise some kind of peace that suited him well. Suited them both.

When he finished eating his apple, he realized he'd have to be back at the Hub soon. There were only these short pretending hours of the day, and then he'd go back to his reality, where he couldn't hear the sound of the rain.

As he returned to the bedroom, in between contemplating his possibilities (have a shower and leave quietly, allowing Ianto a merciful longer time to rest, or crawl back into bed and demand the pay back for a ruined couple of extra hours of sleep very much needed lately), Jack thought, with a mild feeling of apprehension, that he could really, and rather easily, get used to that life that wasn't entirely his, but that he had been sharing, or borrowing, for a while now.

His inquiry, on the other hand, would never really be a tough one to answer; less than ten seconds later Jack had already gotten rid of his trousers once more and was climbing on bed with the subtleness of a cat, eyes lightning up with roguish, joyful mischief.

He pulled off the sheet covering Ianto's body and settled himself propped on one elbow next to him. His hand traced all the length of Ianto's back without touching it, the tip of his fingers just an inch above the ivory skin of his lover. Ianto shifted, as though feeling the static from the proximity of Jack's luxuriating touch.

The Captain's lips quirked up into a mischievous smile, and he lowered his head, breathing on Ianto's hair. There it was, that intoxicating scent of things Jack loved and longed for and couldn't quite define. It was Ianto, distinguishably and uniquely Ianto – but it was him as well, his smell, on the sheets and the pillows and on Ianto's body. Jack felt his cock stirring at the realization.

Ianto, who shifted instinctively once again on his place and mumbled a complaint, was his. Not only his, not completely his, not forever his. But Jack only ever needed the here on his bed and the now in his arms. And for that moment, Ianto was undeniably his, to touch, to fuck, to take; his to love.

Jack let out one more gust of air, self-conscious and filled with a sweeter sort of satisfaction, and this time he didn't resist the closeness, warm lips latching on to suck on the skin.

His teeth closed around the flesh of Ianto's shoulder, then sliding up ever so softly to place feather–like kisses on the back of Ianto's neck. Jack felt the body next to his stiffen and bristle and smirked against the warmth of it; he didn't have to bite too hard to leave red marks that would last all day, as a signature to his work. It was tempting, and also vengeance.

Another bite, this time lower, between shoulder blades, teeth scratching familiar patterns all the way down to the small of Ianto's back, hands sliding between his thighs.

"What are you doing?" he heard the weary, heavy accented voice of his lover sounding just above a purr.

Jack lifted his head and grinned. "Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to wake you," he said, with cheerful irony and no sign of said regret.

Ianto shifted to look back at Jack over his shoulders. His eyes were slightly swollen and although his body had been responding relatively well to the teasing, he seemed utterly lost.

"You were biting me," he concluded after some thought.

"Indeed," Jack nodded. "Am not finished yet."

Ianto hissed, "Not meaning to wake me up," under his breath and made a derisive snort.

"Not you, no. Just your cock," Jack said, matter-of-factly, and flashed him the brightest of his grins. "And as you can see, I was succeeding. Obviously."

Ianto's eye roll ended up turning into a long yawn as he used one arm to push Jack lightly away to roll over himself and lie on his back, stretching out his whole body on the process, letting out a lazy, pleased hum.

Jack leaned over him, kissing his chest and nibbling on his nipple, hearing, all triumphant and aroused, as Ianto's humming turned into a soft, husky moan, his fingers winding through Jack's hair and pulling lightly at the back of his neck.

Jack raised his head just a bit to gaze at Ianto again from under his eyelashes, being greeted by a short and sleepy smile that said many things, but mostly good morning.

When Jack returned the smile, just for one second it was one not (only) of lust and desire, but of truthful gratefulness. And just a moment before he got lost in his ritual of friction and hotness and shivers down his spine, he was thinking -

Too late; he had already gotten used to that.

Fin.


End file.
